Featured Female TravelerS: Lilo and Stacey – Los Angeles, USA

Deafinitely Wanderlust is MissMaps.com’s first featured PAIR of female travelers. The duo is composed of Stacey, age 26, and Lilo, age 28. Both are students and travel bloggers who call Los Angeles home despite having left pieces of their hearts in several places.

Take a peak at where their travels have taken them, and what makes them so unique! By the way, did you notice their blog name? DEAFinitely Wanderlust? The two share more than a love of traveling. They are also united by a commonality – they’re both deaf. Nothing can stop them!

Where was your first trip abroad?
Lilo’s first trip abroad was Bahamas, and Stacey’s first was Mexico.

Where is your favorite destination?We both actually fall in love with South Korea there! Haha, so that’s our favorite destination.

What place is on top of your bucket list?
Lilo: New Zealand or Iceland because it looks so beautiful there and I would love to see the Northern Lights. Stacey: Ahh, that’s hard to pick! Haha, hmm…China! It’s so huge, and there are so many nature places that I want to visit, such as Guilin! It will be thrilling to hike high up in the mountain and see it.

Who is your favorite travel companion? What makes him/her so great?
We actually are each other’s favorite! We often share the same interests, have great communication, make compromises, help each other out through goods and bad and are on the same page with our dreams and goals when traveling. Just to be clear since many people often mistaken us as a couple, we are actually great friends haha.

What is your favorite destination? What makes it special to you?Seoul is our favorite destination because of its lively, vibrant environment and its culture. The food is amazing there, we absolutely love their street food.

What destination would you recommend for other females to visit? Sell it to us!Well…. we mentioned it so many time so isn’t it obvious? haha Its South Korea! It may not be for everyone but it is seriously underrated because there are so many things to do there. There’s Jeju island (They have a penis park! Literally a penis park- look it up), Gyeongju, Busan, etc.

“(They have a penis park! Literally a penis park- look it up)”

What advice would you like to share with other female travelers? It can be your own advice, something someone else has shared with you, or a quote which speaks to you.It’s not always gonna be easy to take off and travel, there are gonna be a lot of conflicts, because…life. It will takes a lot of courage and preparation to just take off the world. Additionally, if you cannot travel far and wide at the moment due to work, school or other commitment, you can try travel locally and domestically. Make the most out of it, because we all have one life to live. We all need to remember not to strive on to live, but to live our life.

What destination is on your radar? What about it attracts you?We would love to travel to mysterious and underrated places that aren’t really overrun by tourism yet such as Mongolia, Croatia, Cuba, North Korea, etc.

Have you travelled alone? If so, how did you find the experience? What were the highs or the lows? Anything you would recommend for others looking to travel alone for the first time?We actually haven’t experience traveling solo yet but we would love to try it when we have the opportunity despite that our family ultimately fear that, not only because we are women but because we are also deaf.

What type of traveler are you? Budget? Luxury? Adventurous?We are both budget and adventurous travelers, we’re down to take different thrilling adventures, even though it can be expensive but we can always budget on other things, like food! 😉

Any thoughts about relationships and travel? Relationships can mean with friends, family, romantic – anything!In the beginning, our families and friends were very supportive but as time went along and the more we traveled, their support became less than what we had hoped for. So it is not always easy. However, we still try to keep positive and keep traveling because it’s our passion.

“So it is not always easy.
However, we still try to keep positive and keep traveling because it’s our passion.”

What is your most memorable travel moment?Oh gosh! There are so many moments that we cherished during our travels. For Lilo, one of her favorite moments is seeing the Milky Way for the first time at Sand Dune National Park in Colorado at midnight. As for Stacey, her favorite moment is the Lantern Festival in Nevada.